SEKE 2012 Proceedings - Knowledge Systems Institute

Aspect-Orientation in the Development of Embedded Systems: A Systematic Review
Leonardo Simas Duarte and Elisa Yumi Nakagawa
Department of Computer Systems, University of São Paulo - USP
PO Box 668, 13560-970, São Carlos, SP, Brazil
{ldu, elisa}@icmc.usp.br
Abstract—Currently, a diversity of embedded systems has
been produced, from systems for consumer electronics to
critical environments, causing a considerable impact to the
society. In another perspective, aspect-orientation approach has
arisen, intending to contribute to the development of reusable,
maintainable, and evolvable software systems. Considering its
relevance, this approach has been also applied to the development
of embedded systems. However, there is not a complete
panorama about how aspect-orientation has been explored
in the development of such systems. Thus, this paper aims
at exploring, organizing, and summarizing the contributions
about the use of aspect-orientation in the development of
embedded systems. For this, we conducted a systematic review
that is a technique that provides an overview of a research
area to assess the quantify of evidences existing on a topic of
interest. As main result, we have observed that in the last years
considerable knowledge related to the aspect-orientation in the
embedded system development has been accumulated; however,
more studies must be conducted yet. Furthermore, this work
intends to contribute to the identification of interesting and
important open research areas.
Keywords-Embedded system; aspect-orientation; systematic
review.
I. INTRODUCTION
Embedded systems refer to computing systems designed
to dedicated features, sometimes as part of a complete
device[14]. Currently, a considerable number of embedded
systems has been developed, such as for automobiles, aircrafts,
PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), digital decoders,
and mobile devices. Furthermore, these systems must consider
the constant growing of processing power, data storage
and graphic capacity, platform convergence and value-added
features, such as location-based and interactive multimedia
services.
In another perspective, Aspect-Oriented Programming
(AOP) has arisen as a new technology to support a better
SoC (Separation of Concerns) and more adequately reflects
the way developers think about the system [7], [8]. Essentially,
AOP introduces a unit of modular implementation —
the aspect — which has been typically used to encapsulate
crosscutting concerns in software systems (i.e., concerns
that are spread across or tangled with other concerns).
Modularity, maintainability, and facility to write software
can be achieved with AOP [10].
Considering the relevance of AOP, initiatives to the development
of embedded systems using AOP have more and
more emerged. Different studies can be found, such as comparisons
of AOP and OOP (Object-Oriented Programming)
to develop such systems [12]. However, there is a lack of
a detailed panorama about why and how AOP has been
adopted to the development of embedded systems. Thus,
the main objective of this paper is to explore, organize,
and summarize the contributions about the use of AOP in
embedded systems.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II we
present the conducted systematic review. In Section III we
discuss about achieved results and summarize our contributions.
II. CONDUCTED SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
Our systematic review was conducted on a hybrid domain
involving Aspect-Orientation and Embedded Systems, aiming
at identifying possibly all primary studies (i.e., a case
study or an experimental study divulged in a publication)
that explore the use of AOP in the embedded system
development. This systematic review was carried out by
three people (one researcher in software engineering, one
specialist in systematic review, and one graduate student). In
order to conduct our systematic review, we have followed the
process proposed by Kitchenham [9], illustrated in Figure 1.
Following, we detail each step:
Figure 1. Systematic Review Process (Adapted from [9])
A. Step 1: Systematic Review Planning
In this step, we established the systematic review plan. For
this, we specified: (i) research questions; (ii) search strategy;
(iii) inclusion and exclusion criteria; (iv) data extraction and
synthesis methods.
Research Questions: These questions are structured corresponding
to the objective that is intended with the systematic
review and drive the review for further steps. Aiming at
discovering all primary studies to understand and summarize
about AOP in the embedded system development, the
158